A snapshot taken at the Shanghai Gynecology Hospital, which is purportedly real although the sign has since been changed after someone complained:
Chris Cillizza reports that Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD), who underwent emergency brain surgery in December of last year, following an intracerebral bleed caused by a congenital arteriovenous malformation, returned to the Senate for the first time today. He also made a speech earlier in the week in South Dakota saying he will indeed seek a third term: "I believe I have been given a second chance at life. I will take that second chance and work harder than ever to be the best I can be for each and every South Dakotan." Superb.
In less happy news, Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-OH) died last night of an apparent heart attack at age 68. Our condolences to his family and friends. His seat will be filled with a special election.
The Party of Perverts, Liars, Jerks, and Thieves strikes again:
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) is apologizing to a couple in his district who complained that he left them two threatening voice mails after they wrote a critical letter to the editor about the freshman member.Indeed not. Especially after having publicly "strongly supported" the recent School Board campaign of Anna Bartha. 'Cuz, ya know, people with functioning brains might put two and two together about how you actually are trying to threaten, intimidate, and scare people you have the capacity to help or hurt.
…Jonathan and Anna Bartha…gave the Denver Post access to two voice-mails they received from Lamborn in which he told them there would be "consequences" if they did not withdraw a letter to the editor of a local newspaper. In the letter to the editor, the couple took issue with a $1,000 contribution Lamborn received from the International Game Technology PAC on the basis that it contradicted his stated anti-gambling stance.
…In the Denver Post article, Anna Bartha said Lamborn’s threat of "consequences" made them feel "threatened and intimidated, and quite frankly, scared."
…Ken Gross, an ethics lawyer at Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom, said Lamborn’s voice mails do not appear to cross any legal lines, although it’s not something "you necessarily want repeated on the front page of the paper."
And I thought it was very thoughtful of them to add an image illustrating how Bush's claim that he "does tears" is totally not bullshit, because, like, here's a picture and shit.
Everyone in the universe (yes, everyone!) has emailed me about the news that Larry Craig may not resign from the Senate after all. Basically, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Almostnotadouche) gave him a call and urged him to reconsider, his kids have evidently told him not to resign because that will make it look like he's admitting he's gay, and he hired Michael Vick's attorney (seriously), Billy Martin, who's saying that Craig's arrest "raises very serious constitutional questions."
As I thought the whole push for resignation by the GOP was rather ridiculous in the first place, just piling more hypocrisy on top of an incident already rich with it, I can't say I'd be disappointed if Craig didn't resign and fought the GOP machine. But it's really sad that he's obviously looking at it primarily as a way to "prove" that he's not gay.
It's not about the constitutional questions, or raising awareness about these sorts of police stings, or advocating on behalf of the gay men who are targeted by them, or pointing out the hypocrisy of his stinking party, or anything else that might be of real value. It's about a man—who has been dogged by rumors that he is gay for twenty-five years, who married, a year after a weirdass preemptive denial that he'd diddled Congressional pages, a woman with three kids he adopted and with whom he maintains a "commuter relationship," who was outed last year by Mike Rogers, and who, in the midst of an investigation by a home state newspaper into allegations he is gay, coincidentally got caught soliciting sex in an airport bathroom in Minnesota—so desperate to not be gay that he'll fight the very power structure that aids and abets and requires his shame and self-loathing to try to prove he's not queer.
This is the wrong fight for you, Senator. You're not going to find many allies on your side of the aisle, who aren't ever going to regard as evidence of your not-gayness any possible exoneration of the charges to which you pleaded guilty. You will, however, find plenty of allies if only you renounce this cockamamie charade and come out of the closet at long last—and tell them you're not leaving your job just because you're gay. Now that's a fight worth having, sir.
In honor of the return of the haunting specter of ZOMG Human-Animal Hybrids!, I figured it's time to recycle this one from March 1, 2006, originally suggested by then-Shakesville contributor Thesaurus Rex: If you could become a human-animal hybrid, with what animal would you be crossed?
First time around, I answered thusly:
I would definitely be half penguin, so I could hold my breath under water for at least a half hour and dive to 1,700 feet. Also, I'd always be ready at a moment's notice for a formal party.Ha.
Mr. Shakes says he would be half dolphin, so he could "swim in the ocean, be dolphiny, and emit ear-piercing screeches that would shatter the windows of local shops." I suspect he isn't taking this question very seriously.
There is the vegetarian Hot Pocket for those of us that don't want to eat meat but still would like diarrhea...
It's actually getting painful watching John McCain's presidential aspirations circle the drain like a grim, foamy ring of bath scum. Not content to just humiliate himself anymore, evidently McCain has outsourced the job to high school students.
William Sleaster, a student at Concord High School in New Hampshire asked McCain a question about his support of gay rights, which McCain answered by talking about his support for DADT then muttering incoherently: "Discrimination in any form is unacceptable in America today," despite having just indicated his continued enthusiasm for discrimination in the military. Then Sleaster asked McCain whether he supports civil unions or same-sex marriage, to which McCain replied he does not, because "they impinge on the status and sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman." McCain loves him some undeserved privilege, yo.
Sleaster went on to ask another question about how to help the working class in America, which McCain fielded by talking about the country's need to figure out education and health care, and to secure the environment.Ouch.
Sleaster indicated that he wanted to follow up again.
"You have one more? Go ahead you're doing good," McCain encouraged.
"I came here looking to see a leader," Sleaster said. "I don't."
The net is abuzz with today's Financial Times article that places blame for the Pentagon's hack attack in June onto the Chinese government:
Current and former officials have told the Financial Times that an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People's Liberation Army.All we need to do is prove that Iran supplied China with the computers to use.. and... uh, no that won't work. Are we absolutely sure that this isn't just a load of bullshit?
One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there was a "very high level of confidence . . . trending towards total certainty" that the PLA was responsible.Lucky for you Shakers I was able to find the leaked Powerpoint slide which clearly shows the metrics to support that official's statement.
"The last six years have been a powerful bit of evidence that we have to judge candidates for president on their preparation for the office with the same relish that we assess their personalities."—Chris Matthews, in the stunning Vanity Fair article on the press treatment of Al Gore during the 2000 campaign, to which Chet linked below.
(Q: Could I despise Chris Matthews more? A: No.)
Someone throw a bucket of settlethefuckdown on Bill Richardson:
God’s will is for Iowa to have the first-in-the-nation caucus, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson told a crowd here today.Ya think?
"Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord should be the first caucus and primary," Richardson, New Mexico’s governor said at the Northwest Iowa Labor Council Picnic.
…Several people in the crowd snickered after Richardson made the comment. "That was a little weird," said Sioux City resident Joe Shufro.
On September 4, 1957 -- fifty years ago today -- one of the most spectacular lessons in corporate planning, marketing, and promotional ballyho kicked off.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Edsel.
Dr. Wankenstein (aka Robert Draper, author of Dead Certain) was on The Today Show, where he spent a little time talking about the man attached to the dick he's been using as a happy baby pacifier yummy yum. The whole thing is just jaw-clenchingly infuriating, as any reasonable person might expect, but this is the bit that really just sent me well and truly around the bloody bend (and it's right at the beginning of the clip):
Draper: The president can appear to be this sort of instinctive gut fighter, but he can also be quite reflective. He's, uh, he certainly recognizes the consequences of war. That was (taught? talked?) to him by Andy Card, his then-chief of staff, even before he went to war, that one of the consequences of being a wartime president is you spend a lot of time hugging families of the fallen. And I think he takes that responsibility seriously.OMFG.
In my home, the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon is a must-see. (Well, for me, anyway. The husband isn't interested.) Of course, the trick nowadays is to tune in when Jerry is actually on camera. He's not present during the entire telethon anymore, but it's always entertaining to see Jerry rambling about something or other, or who knows, you might actually witness the coveted "LAAAAAADY!"
And of course, sometimes you see something really jaw-dropping. Jerry didn't disappoint yesterday. (Well, he disappointed, to say the least, but not in the way I mean.)
A woozy Jerry Lewis went Isaiah Washington last night on the MDA telethon, when we called someone, or something, an "illiterate faggot," reports our friends at TMZ.Not that I'm in any way condoning what Jerry did at that moment, but I do think he was trying to make a joke. A really bad, offensive joke, but it almost looked like at that moment Jerry remembered where he was, but not when he was. I'm sure in 1955 at the Sands, that would have killed 'em. 2007 at the MDA telethon? Not so much.
During one of Jerry's usual rants, while in the 18th hour of the MDA Labor Day telethon, Jerry swayed, trying to dodge the cameraman, then introduced a "family member" as "the illiterate faggot". Then just as it came out of his mouth, he seemed to remember that he was on live TV, stopped himself and tried on move on.
So if anyone missed me over the last week, it's because I was on vacation in New Mexico, visiting the internet with blissful irregularity. You should totally check out the posts by new Shapely Prose contributors Fillyjonk and Sweet Machine that went up in my absence. And you should keep checking back there for more by them, because they're both much smarter than funnier than I am, but I'm the only one who cross-posts here. Ha!
Anyway.
On Saturday, Al and I went to the Tesuque Pueblo Flea Market, expecting it to be like one of our standard midwestern flea markets (Al was secretly hoping to find an old Atari), only to discover it was essentially an arts and crafts fair -- and a pretty upscale one at that. I fell in love with Lisa Chun's stuff and bought this to hang over my desk, but other than that, it was pretty much the same stuff we'd been looking at all week: turquoise and silver jewelry, handwoven scarves and blankets, fetishes (I had to learn there's a whole other meaning for that word after walking by like five "Jewelry and Fetish" shops, and going, "HUH?"), etc.
So we hit the food tents to try some fry bread, which is pretty much a funnel cake -- and a close cousin to the locally ubiquitous sopaipilla -- but hey, it was TRADITIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN CUISINE; we had to get some. Al went to another booth to get himself a drink while I went looking for a table. They were all full. But two older men started calling out to me, all, "Ma'am, you're welcome to sit over here!" (When did I become "ma'am" to men old enough to be my father?) I was stupid enough to sit down and engage before I noticed the one dude's "Freedom Isn't Free" T-shirt. They were from Texas. The "Freedom Isn't Free" guy was up there on some sort of Baptist mission. (To stamp out all that Catholic influence, I guess?)
He turned out to be the one I liked better.
Because the other one -- after making a "feather or dot?" joke on a fucking reservation -- decided it would be hilarious to keep ragging on Al about his weight. "Boy, you'd better be careful! Looks like a stiff breeze might blow you clean away!" "You sure you need that fried dough?" "Well, you do look hungry!" It was like that was the only kind of small talk he could think up, after he'd realized we weren't interested in slagging off Native Americans with him. (For the record, Al ate like two bites of the fry bread, which he was splitting with me in the first place. Between the two of us, we consumed about a third of the portion we were given. But hey, we all know fat people are not allowed to have a taste of anything that, you know, has a taste. What can I say? We were hamstrung by the lack of a celery and oxygen tent.)
And you guys, here's the awfulest part: I didn't know what to say. I mean, "Drop dead, asshole" was an obvious choice, but the words wouldn't come out. I didn't even think to say something like, "Hey, I love him exactly as he is!" I was just so totally flustered by it, because dude was insulting my boyfriend to his face, repeatedly, but it was all supposed to be a big joke, so it'd be impolite to tell him I hoped he fell off a cliff, right? ARGH. Why, at 32 years old, do I still feel the need to be polite to people who are anything but? Why, twenty years after beginning the phase in which I locked myself in the basement and listened to the Smiths obsessively, do I still give valuable time to people I'd much rather kick in the eye?*
The upside of this experience, I guess, was that I got a good lesson in how things are different for fat men and fat women. 'Cause here's what I finally did say, which actually stopped the jackass in his tracks: "Hey, you're talking about me, too!" I have no idea why that's the only rejoinder that made it out of my mouth, but it did shut him up. He would have kept after Al all day long, but he didn't want to insult a lady, apparently. (On the other hand, we left about 90 seconds later, so maybe he was just taking a breather.)
For as many times as I've argued that this culture is somewhat harder on fat women -- if only because we're all expected to be conventionally beautiful, while men can often get away with being merely smart and accomplished -- I haven't had to deal with anyone making non-stop fat jokes to my face since the seventh grade. People who are trying to give the appearance of friendliness (even if they ultimately give the appearance of passive aggressive assholishness) don't generally greet strange women with, "Hey there, tubby! You haven't missed too many meals, have you?" That's pretty much reserved for men. (Though it's excused, interestingly enough, with the exact same bullshit that's frequently used to justify inappropriate comments about a woman's body: Hey, it's just a joke! I didn't mean anything by it! Lighten up!) The fact that this dickhead finally stopped when I pointed out he was also insulting me kinda drives that home. You don't do that to a lady! Ladies have feelings! It's only men who have to suck it up and take it, because hey, I was just giving you a hard time, buddy.
I can't speak for Al regarding how he felt about all that, but I can tell you a couple things I know for sure:
1. This guy was being mean. I don't care how much he was smiling or laughing or winking -- he was a passive-aggressive dickshine of the first order. He was absolutely trying to make Al feel small (uh, so to speak). And when it didn't work, he just tried harder.
2. Men actually do have feelings. Or so I've been told.
In light of those two things, there is no fucking excuse whatsoever for sitting there talking shit about another guy's body, under the guise of being friendly.
I mean, teasing among people who know and respect each other is one thing. I come from a family that expresses love most often in the form of (hopefully) witty insults, which utterly horrifies people who come from families that are actually nice to each other. And half the reason Al and I are made for each other is that we spend a great deal of our time together having conversations like this:
Al: Wow, that's a gigantic zit you've got there.
Me: Here, did you want to get a closer look? [Accosts him with bezitted shoulder.]
Al: I... I think it's got a face.
Me: Is it winking at you?
Al: It's saying, "FEEEEED MEEEEE!"
Now, anyone who knows me knows that, in the history of Kate's Body Image Issues, acne places a close second after fat, and for a while -- like back at that seventh grade lunch table -- they were running neck and neck. Zits ranked pretty fucking high on my Adolescent Self-Hatred Checklist. So even now, if some guy I'd just met said, "Wow, that's a gigantic zit you've got there," I'd either deck him or cry, depending on what kind of mood I was in. But when Al says it (and, characteristically, refuses to let it die) I end up laughing my ass off.
So I'm certainly not too sensitive or too proud to understand the concept of bonding by pointing out each other's flaws. But that was not remotely what this guy was doing. He was swinging his old man dick, trying to put Al in his place. And if Al had said something like, oh, I don't know, "Why don't you shut the fuck up?" you know this guy would have attacked him for not taking it like a man, for being too weak to accept a barrage of insults in a good-natured manner.
Maybe I didn't say anything because I was afraid of contributing to that impression: the Fat Guy has to get his girlfriend to fight his battles. The horror! Maybe I didn't say anything because it just wasn't a battle worth spending any energy on. Or maybe I didn't say anything because I've been conditioned to believe it's okay to speak that way to a man. Men can take it.
It was probably a little of all three. And there's only one of those reasons that I'm not ashamed of.
*Before Liss gets pedantic about it, I paraphrase.
Yes, that's quite a ringing endorsement from The First Lady:
In a new book on the Bush presidency, entitled “Dead Certain,” former Texas Monthly senior editor Robert Draper reveals that First Lady Laura Bush refers to her husband’s longtime political adviser, Karl Rove, as “Pigpen,” the perpetually dirty character from Charles Schulz’ “Peanuts” comic strip.And, just like Pigpen, Karl would like you to respect the fact that he could be carrying around the dirt, dust and horseshit from ancient civilizations.
Hey, Seattle Times—nice job on choosing a tremendously flattering and professional photo of Kos for your story on Teh Blogz.
